by Jenn Gott
Jane shut her eyes. She counted to a rapid ten, trying to will her heart back down from the stratosphere.
The PA system clicked on. “Yeah, I may have been lying earlier.”
Jane bit down on her first response, the impulse to dish his taunting right back at him. Instead, she turned toward the staircase, shifting her vision until she could see through the marble. She craned her eyes around, looking for heat signatures.
And there he was. Up in the corner of the lobby, crouched low and stable. He looked like he was leaning against something, probably a banister of some type that he had the sniper rifle resting on.
Jane tapped her earpiece. “He’s in the northwest corner. Near the ceiling.”
“On it,” Granite Girl said. “We’re almost to security. Just keep him distracted a little while longer.”
“Right, sure,” Jane whispered to herself. “Like it’s that easy.”
She’d have to make it easy.
“You were right, you know,” Jane called. “What you said, earlier: that I never paid attention to you, that you didn’t matter to me. That was wrong, Cal. You were a good friend. You always were. I want you to know that I’m sorry.”
Silence. Jane stole another peek in infrared—Cal wasn’t moving, though whether it was because he was trained on Jane’s position and just waiting for her to appear, or whether her words had actually made some kind of impact, it was impossible to say.
“Cal? Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I can hear you. It’s just not going to make a difference.”
Cal’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, echoing down like the word of God. Jane couldn’t help but feel like maybe he was telling her some deeper truth: it wasn’t going to make a difference. None of what they were doing was going to make a difference. UltraViolet had so far managed to outmaneuver them at every turn, making them dance to her tune as if they were amateurs. Why would this time be any different?
Jane shook her doubts off. They had no time for doubts.
“All right, we see him,” Granite Girl said in Jane’s earpiece, and not a moment too soon. “Jane? If you can lure him down the hall to your left, we should be able to seal him in between some emergency doors.”
Jane tapped her earpiece. “I’ll do my best.”
She only hoped it would be enough. Jane reviewed the layout of the building in her head, trying to figure out the best way forward, any viable means of escape. Her stomach gave a restless flutter, and Jane frowned because it was right, she was stalling. Jane took a few quick breaths. Okay, okay, she thought to herself. Three . . . two . . . one.
“All right, tough guy,” Jane called. She shut her eyes, just for a moment, gathering strength. “If you think you’re so badass . . . come and get me.”
She threw one hand up, casting a glorious burst of light throughout the lobby, and tore off down the hall.
Paintings stared down in judgment at her.
Jane couldn’t blame them. It was one thing to feel brave while caught up in the adrenaline of combat; it was quite another to stand in the middle of a darkened gallery, waiting for an attack that she both was and wasn’t hoping would come.
Jane turned in place. She was looking for heat signatures, laser sights, anything that might give her some indication of when and where Cal was coming from. So far—nothing. Even Granite Girl and Allison had lost track of him, in the gaps between security camera coverage. All that she could picture were the dark hallways stretching out from the gallery, the rooms stacked together to shepherd patrons from one exhibit to the next to the next.
And still, they hadn’t found UltraViolet or Amy yet. Jane tried not to worry, but it was impossible. What kind of dastardly scheme was UltraViolet putting in motion, even now, as Jane stood in the gallery as bait for Cal? Had she managed to get the larger version of Doctor Demolition’s weapon working? The only small comfort Jane could take is at least if that was true, it wouldn’t detonate in the same building UltraViolet herself was in—but that wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been. UltraViolet could leave, after all. Or maybe she’d never even been here in the first place. Maybe she’d found some way to fool the Heroes’ methods of detection. Or maybe she had been here, but was already gone—maybe she’d set up the weapon, tied Amy to it like in the old comics, and booked it to safer ground. Maybe it was going to blow, any second now, and take all of them with it. Maybe—
A ceiling panel crashed to the floor, so close that the edge of it grazed Jane’s back. She didn’t even have time to scream before a figure tumbled down after it, catching her shoulders and sending her into a face-plant.
Her training kicked in. Jane caught herself, marble floor smacking hard into her palms, one elbow knocking against the ground. Her foot darted out without thinking, as Jane twisted to see exactly who and where she was kicking at. She aimed for Cal’s legs, hoping to unbalance him, but he stepped back out of her reach.
Good enough—Jane scrambled to her feet, running hard for a door marked “Employees Only.” She tore through it as Cal lunged for her, but Jane twisted aside just in time to avoid being snared.
She turned around, her heart pounding high in her chest. Cal kept advancing, as Jane scurried back. In the darker corridor, he looked somehow larger than he really was; he’d fill an entire panel, his shoulders buckling the framing lines, his face full of heavy strokes. Jane’s feet stumbled over themselves, counting steps—four, five, six—at seven, her fingers brushed over the beginning of an open door, and Jane leaped back, skipping right over steps eight and nine. Green EXIT light spilled across her face.
“Now!”
A low slam! filled the corridor—but not the one that Jane had been counting on. Not the emergency doors, shutting safe between Jane and Cal. Jane blinked in the sudden darkness, the whole building now plunged into the pit of night.
Cal’s grin glowed a wicked orange in infrared. Like the devil himself. “Whoops,” Cal said. “Looks like someone sabotaged the security systems before you arrived.” He flicked on a light strapped to his wrist and raised it up until it caught his face from below, a child telling ghost stories. “Boo.”
He lashed forward.
The next instant was a jumble, faster than Jane could scream. She saw Pixie Beats expanding rapidly, crouched on Cal’s shoulder—she must have been clinging to his collar, Jane had written that trick before—and she saw Cal spill forward from the sudden weight. Pixie Beats leaped away, bouncing off the wall behind her, as Cal turned his fall into a roll. He found his footing again right in front of Jane, and Jane, acting on impulse, shot off a quick laser beam at his leg.
Cal roared. Jane saw his jacket pull back, the holster of his gun.
A flash of light as Jane feinted to the side. The deafening explosion of Cal’s gun, so much louder in an enclosed space. The heat of the bullet buried itself in the wall beside Jane. Jane’s throat dried. Pixie Beats leaped forward, landing in a quick handstand on Cal’s hunched back. The gun clattered from his hands as he caught his weight, palms splayed on the polished floor, and Jane kicked the gun to send it spinning into the darkness. Pixie Beats landed lightly beside Jane; she grabbed Jane by the waist, and Jane let out a yelp as her feet left the floor. The world spun, warped like a bad acid trip as Jane’s size reduced and ballooned again. Pixie Beats had thrown her over Cal, shrinking her just long enough to pitch her like a baseball. Jane landed hard on the floor as Cal was leaping up, intent on Pixie Beats. Pixie Beats spun a kick at his head, but Cal was prepared for that—he shoved at her leg, using a block maneuver to keep her spin going, farther than she’d intended, and he used his free arm to throw a punch for her now-exposed midsection.
Jane gave a sympathetic wince as Pixie Beats flew back, off-balanced and clutching at her kidneys. Pixie Beats shrank, retreating, but Jane did not give Cal even an instant to regain his own footing. She tried to surprise him. He had taught her a fantastic punch-punch-kick combo, and Jane could see the maneuver in her head: how she’d surprise him,
his lessons come back to bite him in the ass. The shock exploding across his face, captured in a close-up.
Turns out that life wasn’t quite as neat as a comic, and Cal’s military training was better than Jane’s makeshift sessions. Her first punch was deflected, and Cal used Jane’s own momentum against her as he threw her to the nearest wall.
The sound of a gun broke through the hall. Jane’s heart leaped, sure that Cal had managed to retrieve his somewhere in the chaos, sure that she was going to die.
Instead, mad footfalls crashed toward Jane. Thunderous as stone.
Cal booked it out of there, as Granite Girl and Allison came tearing through.
“Don’t just stand there!” Allison said, as she grabbed Jane by the collar. “Run!”
They ran. All four of them, racing down the halls of the museum. Darkness was cut only by the swath of flashlights, catching signs and the polished posts of velvet ropes.
When they reached a T-junction, Jane pointed left. “You guys keep following him. I’m going to swing around, try to cut him off.”
“Right,” Pixie Beats said. She and Granite Girl took off, but Allison stayed put.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said.
“Fine.”
Jane veered to the right. She didn’t have time to argue. She was tracking Cal through the walls as best as she could, though it was mostly her familiarity with the museum that made her confident she’d be able to cut off his escape. She ran past one exhibit and then another. Past the stairs, and then the entrance to the auditorium. Up ahead . . . Jane tried to keep her eyes away from the next room, because the next room was the gallery that they’d reserved for their wedding, but memory drew her gaze. Just for an instant.
Heat signatures glowed through the walls. Jane scrambled, her boots squeaking like a basketball court as she slid against the polished floor. She came to a halt in front of the open door, and her infrared vision switched off as she gaped through the doorway.
Amy.
“Amy!”
“No, don’t!” Allison grabbed Jane just as Jane began to plunge into the gallery.
“Let go of me!”
“No, but look.”
Jane looked.
It wasn’t easy, to force her eyes on anything but Amy. Amy, who was lashed to an ornate chair in the far end of the gallery, pinned beneath a spotlight like the focal point of the whole exhibit. Amy, a tangle of electronic devices spread at her feet, another encircling her head like a crown. A trail of wires strung down from her temples; they clustered at a silver disk sealed over her heart, gathered there like the stems of roses held fast in a suitor’s hand. The same disk that UltraViolet had used on Jane back at the factory. The same one, supposedly, that had been used on Clair after her accident.
Amy stared at Jane, and Jane stared at Amy. Amy’s mouth was gagged, but her eyes were pleading.
“Look,” Allison urged again, and this time Jane tore her gaze away.
She looked.
The gallery was littered with laser beams. Invisible to anyone else, so high frequency that even Jane could barely see them. They cut an intricate lattice between Jane and Amy, wound tight as a net.
“How—?” Jane started, but Allison jerked her chin toward the walls. Black boxes clung in tight knots along the wainscoting, the crown molding, the floorboards.
“I recognize a trip-beam explosive when I see one,” Allison said. “We can’t approach.”
UltraViolet’s voice echoed through the gallery. “You should listen to her, Jane. Our teachers always did say she was the smart one.”
She stood up. She must have been working on something behind Amy’s chair, and Jane had been so focused on the horror in front of her that she hadn’t seen UltraViolet, any more than she’d seen the laser beams. Jane’s head spun now, looking at her. UltraViolet had changed into Jane’s own clothes, the ones that she’d left in Cal’s SUV when they’d headed for the factory, what seemed like a lifetime ago. It was beyond weird, watching “herself” as she checked her watch.
“I have to admit,” UltraViolet said, “you got here faster than I expected. The team actually believed you?”
“I have an honest face.”
“Why, thank you.” UltraViolet touched her own cheek. “I like to think so.”
“Too bad you don’t live up to it,” Allison said.
UltraViolet’s lips twisted in distaste. “Ugh. Why did you have to bring her, though? She’s no fun at all.”
“You want fun?” Allison asked. She snapped her gun up, steady in her hands. “I’ll show you fun.”
“Allison!”
Jane grabbed Allison’s wrist. The barrel of Allison’s gun hovered in front of them, barely an inch from the closest laser.
UltraViolet laughed. “Yeah, maybe not the smartest move, sister dear. These things are everywhere in here, trust me. And since you can’t see them . . . you wouldn’t want to risk me falling over and crossing one of them, now, would you? I mean . . . shit, what would the agency think? You might tarnish that golden reputation of yours.”
“Not if they don’t know I’m here.”
Jane’s hand went cold.
A glint sparkled in the corner of UltraViolet’s eye. “Why, Allison! How naughty of you. I’m impressed.”
“But . . . ,” Jane said. “You told me—”
“I know what I told you. But someone has to stop my sister, before she can hurt any more people.” She tightened her grip on her gun. “She almost killed our father. I won’t let anyone else suffer at her hands.”
“Oh, please,” UltraViolet said. “You say that like it’s supposed to mean something. The bastard had it coming.”
“Shut up!” Allison said. “Just shut up, or I swear I’ll drop you right here!”
UltraViolet rolled her eyes. Still, her hands went up, in a mock I-surrender pose, before she dramatically drew a zipper motion across her lips.
She went back to work.
Jane wrenched Allison’s hands down, and the gun with it. “Are you crazy? She’s right, this place is rigged to go up a thousand times over. You can’t just shoot her if you don’t know where she’s going to fall. And anyway, how’s that going to help Amy? We have to find some way to—”
“Jane?” came a voice in Jane’s earpiece. “Allison? Where are you guys? I thought you were going to cut off Cal’s escape!”
Jane’s stomach twisted up.
“Shit,” Jane muttered. She’d forgotten all about Cal.
Allison glanced back at UltraViolet, then craned her neck toward the door. She leaned over, just enough to whisper, “I’m going to head back, get the others.”
A tiny nod was the most Jane could manage.
“Not so fast,” UltraViolet said, just as Allison was beginning to turn. She pressed a button on a laptop that everything was plugged in to like a central node, and another set of laser beams sprang to life—cutting off access to the door. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? As if I haven’t been preparing for this. I know everything that you two clowns can think up, you know. I’m ready for them all.”
“Jane?” Pixie Beats tried again. “Jane?” Granite Girl added. “Dammit, Jane, can you hear us?”
“Don’t answer,” Allison whispered. She looked pointedly at UltraViolet, as if Jane needed to be reminded that, regardless of how little attention she appeared to be paying to them, she was actually listening to everything Jane and Allison said.
“But—”
“No. We’re on our own.”
Jane shut her eyes. A childish reaction—if I can’t see it, it can’t see me—but one that Jane retreated to without shame. Maybe at the end of our lives, we all circle back to the beginning again.
No, Jane told herself firmly. This wasn’t the end—she would not let it be the end.
She opened her eyes, and nearly staggered back from the sight that awaited her. The gallery was full to the brim with rippling waves of color, a thousand hues, going all different dire
ctions. It was like . . .
Well, that was the problem—it wasn’t like anything Jane had ever seen before. Like cascading soap bubbles, and rainbows if rainbows came out to dance, and the ocean at sunset, and trippy sixties animation, and the way that laughter would look if you could give it a shape. Bubbles constantly bloomed and became ripples, one after the next and the next and the next, colliding with walls and statues, passing through walls and statues. Jane stared and stared, turning in place to take it all in.
“Jane?” Allison asked softly, in the hope of not drawing UltraViolet’s attention. “Jane, are you okay?”
Jane made herself nod. She turned back, and had to bite down to keep from bursting out laughing. Bubbles were blooming out of Allison’s head, encircling her like deep-sea diving helmets and then growing to cartoonish proportions. No—not her head. Her ear. Or, more accurately, the earpiece hidden inside.
It hit Jane all at once, then, what she was seeing: wireless signals. Her previous success in this range had been tiny bursts, instinctive explosions that had grazed against the frequency without really allowing her full access, much like her uncontrolled bursts of light. Intentional manipulation would require a more delicate touch, to be able to see what she was doing, to be able to watch the signals bounce around her.
But . . . could she? It’s true that her powers didn’t feel threatening at the moment, but that could change in a heartbeat.
It was a risk that Jane would just have to take. She looked hurriedly to the bombs littering the walls, but of course they were static, with vine-like cords trailing from them to gather in a nest at UltraViolet’s laptop. Jane frowned; she knew it couldn’t be that easy. On the other hand, that did also mean that UltraViolet wouldn’t be able to trigger the detonations remotely either, so Jane supposed that, at least, was good to know.
Okay, but there had to be something else that Jane could do. The laptop?—but no, that, too, was lashed to an outlet in the wall, undisturbed by the wifi floating over and through it. Jane bit her lip, looking again to Allison.